


Carpet Burn Means I Love You

by missdeviant



Category: The OC
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-06-29
Updated: 2004-06-29
Packaged: 2017-10-31 08:50:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/342180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missdeviant/pseuds/missdeviant





	Carpet Burn Means I Love You

  


Seth’s stopped trying to hide the bruises. His eyes seek them out daily, in lopsided mirrors in public restrooms, in the rearview of the Range Rover as he skims over the highway bathed in pale morning light. The long pink streaks of bitten fingernails on his thighs. A circle of broken blood vessels on the curve of his shoulder. A black and blue spot on the cap of his knee, right at the edge where the bone dips down.

He wears the necks of his green and white striped shirts unbuttoned far past his collarbone, daring passersby to recoil at the round red spot near the middle of his chest. He walks into his kitchen with the jewfro rakishly disheveled, shoelace trailing behind a scuffed red Puma, and grins at Rosa, who blinks owlishly and shakes her head.

Since coming back from Tahiti, things have been…different.

Not with his mom and dad so much. Sure, within two minutes of the boat getting into dock, they were on Seth with the whole overprotective-asthma thing. Of course, that lasted about as long as Seth’s first time. Then they moved on to the strict warden-like thing. Except he didn’t have to wear a jumpsuit (which was good, because that made him think about Ryan, who he couldn't see, with the lack of driving and all).

For a while, it almost reached the point where Seth would have gladly traded living with his parents for three weeks of being eleven at Camp Tuckahoe.

But, finally, after a month and a half of getting their ears assailed by Donovan and Modest Mouse and the Pixies; after figuring out that Seth-without-Ryan (even with phone privileges) was really no different from Seth-on-the-Sea; the elder Cohens resignedly handed over the keys to the Range Rover.

Sandy said “Be back by ten.”

Kirsten handed him a large brown paper bag that, upon inspection, was filled with cardboard covered foil tins.

Not long after, Seth’s foot tapped in time with the tarnished brass knocker on a ramshackle ranch house.

The door opened and his breath hitched. “Ryan.” He finally choked out.

“Seth.” Ryan nodded in recognition.

Seth inhaled deeply. “Where’s Theresa?”

Ryan tilted his head enigmatically, quirked an eyebrow, and tugged Seth inside.

Only a long while after Ryan smiled and shut the bedroom door behind them did Seth realize he’d forgotten the food in the car.

*

Sex with Ryan didn’t work the way Seth thought it would. With Summer, the injuries seemed to disappear with time. Well, except for the one time they decided to try having sex with her stilettos on, which ended up with a heel where *no* heel should go, and Summer whining loudly about how you couldn’t just replace *one* Manolo pump, and her stepmom would totally notice the stain on the fabric covered heel.

Maybe it’s because Ryan’s a guy, and not interested in shoes, that Seth doesn’t have to worry about that. Then again, maybe it’s just because Ryan’s not Summer, and the marks Ryan leaves feel purposeful, deliberate, the opposite of teenage fumblings.

Summer looks at Seth’s bruises, sometimes, licks them and runs her fingers over them, and Seth’s nostrils flare as the marks flame and throb under her touch. Seth wonders why he’s never had to tell her where they came from.

He wonders why she doesn’t seem to mind.

More often, he wonders why he doesn’t. The story stretches in front of and behind him like so much ocean, the two of them indistinguishable from the surf and each other: the feel of Summer’s head on his chest as they danced at the Nichol-Cooper wedding, the lump in his throat when Ryan offered him the map.

Ryan’s chin, rubbing roughly against his own while Ryan's tongue flicked at Seth's mouth. It felt familiar even when it wasn’t, the calloused fingers tugging at Seth’s belt buckle. Seth, chest heaving, pressed against a garage sale dresser; handle in his back, making an deep red impression.

Summer refusing to touch the peeling skin on Seth’s back when he first gets home, then quietly leaving an oversize bottle of lotion on his dresser. Her eyes, wide at Seth's raw-scraped chin after he returned from Chino. Her mouth, silent, then. Her lips, light on his, slick with gloss.

Lying by omission isn’t lying, Seth assures himself. He doesn’t have to tell Summer what she already knows. And even if he and Ryan have taken to using hotel rooms instead of waiting for a time when Theresa’s at work, that’s not lying either, really.

Stilll, it makes him feel less guilty when he finally decides to stop covering the evidence up.

*

Ryan's different from Summer, but just as necessary. He doesn’t have fingernails, they’re worn to the nub by days hauling mortar and pipe, but Seth can still feel them gouging into his pelvis as Ryan twists against him, into him, and Seth's hips buck, the world goes white behind his eyes, all pain disappears.

The next morning he sees them, tiny dime sized spots, with pinkish crescents running across their centers.

Sometimes, in a mass of rough tangled sheets nothing like the ones on the beds in Newport, they freeze for a moment. Ryan’s hand presses against the small of Seth’s back, his teeth tug on Seth’s earlobe, the air is damp, and Seth thinks, “Dude.” Or “Man.”

All words that he’s thought before, but not quite in this way.

When he’s with Ryan, Seth becomes someone else. He bites Ryan’s lip until he hears Ryan gasp and throttles a moan when he tastes salt on his tongue. Neither of them ever say stop.

Neither of them try to explain.

In fact, most of the time, neither of them says anything.

Which, okay, fine. He doesn’t need answers, even if he wants them. If there’s one thing Seth knows, it’s that Ryan’s not a talking person. He’s not a banner-across-the-sky person. Ryan’s probably not even a Hallmark card kind of person. Instead, Seth counts the marks on his body and translates them into what he wants them to mean with his own Ryan-to-Seth Sex Dictionary. A red-purple hickey means I’m sorry I had to leave you. The round circle of a bite on the flesh of Seth’s inner thigh, I wish it didn’t have to be this way. The bruise on his knee, wow, when did that lamp get there?

Okay, Seth has to admit that the lamp injury was more his doing than Ryan’s, but sixteen years of oafishness wasn’t suddenly cured by becoming gay. Or fucking your best friend. Seth still hadn’t decided if the fucking made him gay, or if it meant he had the best friend _ever_.

Most of the time, Seth leans towards the latter. After all, Ryan has Theresa, and Seth has Summer, and because Hallmark doesn’t make “I’m sorry I made you sail to Tahiti” cards, maybe that’s all that these desperate late night trysts mean.

But every once in a while, when Seth comes home woozy and sticky and with carpet burn on his knees, he thinks what Ryan is really trying to tell him might be something a little bit more.

\--finis--


End file.
